By:Cindy J. Roth
As America entered war against Afghanistan earlier this week, local veterans warned the conflict would not be like anything the country has seen before.
"When my granddaughter grabs my hand when a plane flies overhead and asks, 'Grandpa, is that a good plane or a bad plane?' we have a terrible situation," said Paul Kline, 78, World War II veteran. "This is not a conventional war. It's a whole new ball game."
Kline, an Army sergeant stationed in China during the Second World War, said America's prewar mentality at the time was very different than today's. The country, Kline said, was united behind the war. There were no peacenik rallies as seen in Washington, DC of late. Kline remembers unpacking a box of Thompson sub-machine guns while in China and finding inside a piece of white tissue paper. Confused why there would be tissue paper packed with the guns, Kline unfolded it to find female lipstick lip impressions all over it.
"That's the kind of backing we had that permeated the entire war effort," he said. "We don't have that today."
Conflicts that followed World War II tore the country apart, said Sal Saladino, 77, also a World War II veteran. Recently, Saladino said, he has seen people band together again, noting the many American flags displayed in the Bellmores. Regardless of whether there is full-fledged support for war, America must respond, otherwise terrorism will never end, he said.
"We can't turn our backs anymore," Saladino said. The terrorists "are mad men. They hurt themselves to hurt us. We can't negotiate. War is never pleasant, but we have to do something."
That something, according to Saladino, should be surgical strikes against the terrorists. Saladino advises using fewer specially trained troops to enter into terrorist pockets. Full-scale war should be a last resort.
Frank Colon Jr., 49, a Vietnam, Grenada and Desert Storm veteran, said the war on terrorism will be long. To fight back, "terrorists need to be cut out like a cancer," Colon said.
Unlike Saladino, Colon believes ground combat is the proper course. Colon said military troops will die on the ground, but freedom is not free.
"People don't like war," Colon said. "It's not pretty. No one wins in a war. The problem with sending one bomb over and ending it, to send one bomb won't get them all and kills innocent people. Ground troops are the way to go. The guys can do it. They are very, very well trained and ready to go. The military trains round the clock every day."
Regardless of the new war's outcome, Bellmore veterans say life in America will not be the same. People will live in fear because America is no longer immune to the reach of terrorists.
"I feel sorry for my children and grandchildren because now they are entering a whole new world," Kline said. "The minds of the terrorists are similar to Japanese kamikaze fighters. It will be a long, long fight."
